Being the product of
two parents who worked blue-collar jobs from the time they were in their late
teens until they retired allowed me to absorb a lot of their tried-and-true old-school philosophies
along the way.

One of my favorites, or
I guess, two is more accurate: You earn what you get and you get what you earn.

That notion fits
perfectly with the LSU football team and the invitation it received to the
Outback Bowl on Sunday.

With one understandable
tweak, the trip to Tampa to face Iowa is exactly what should've happened for
the Tigers to cap a season when they delivered pretty much what they were
capable of this fall.

The tweak is that LSU
at 9-3 overall and third place in the West Division should've been headed to
the Cotton Bowl against Oklahoma State. But for whatever reasons, the Capital One
Bowl snagged SEC East runnerup South Carolina and the Outback Bowl folks passed
on the chance to invite East Division champ Missouri, so some wheels spun into
motion.

And this year, those
wheels rotated in the Tigers' favor instead of handing them the shaft, as was
the case after the 2012 season.

As logical - and potentially
more lucrative, ticket-wise and TV numbers-wise - as it would've been to match
up LSU and Oklahoma State in the Cotton Bowl, the reason that didn't happen
this year makes much more sense to a year ago when the Tigers got snubbed in
favor of Texas A&M.

Whether by common sense
or through some behind-the-scenes arm-twisting and maybe both, the Capital One
and Outback folks were leery about how many Mizzou fans would make the trek
from Mid America to Florida, especially after a good chunk spent some
unexpected money on traveling to Atlanta for the SEC Championship Game.

Ok, all of that makes
sense. I still think Missouri-Wisconsin or especially Missouri-Iowa matchups
would've been more intriguing that a rehash of Mizzou against longtime
conference foe Oklahoma State, but that's water under the bridge now. Mizzou
fans did gobble up 13,500 tickets for the Cotton Bowl, so maybe somebody knew
something.

Where the SEC or the
Outback folks or whoever did the right thing was by not allowing Texas A&M
to elbow its way in to the discussion and knock LSU down another notch or two.
Or if the Aggies were there, somebody made sure that the Tigers got the
consideration they deserved by thumping A&M head-to-head in late November.

Because somebody at
some level had some common sense, LSU is playing in the highest profile bowl
game available to the Tigers -- remember the Cotton and Outback are regarded as
equals in the SEC pecking order, right behind the Capital One.

In other words, LSU got
what it earned.

And, yes, the Tigers
earned what they got, as well, by posting four impressive SEC victories among
their five wins. Two you know of -- Auburn and A&M. I don't do the
retroactive thing and look back and diminish the win over Florida. At the time,
the Gators were a very good team and still fairly intact. Likewise, I see
plenty of value in the road win at Mississippi State when you take the Bulldogs'
season as a whole.

One thing to address:
Losing to Ole Miss really didn't affect LSU's bowl positioning. Yeah, it was a
bad loss, particularly under the circumstances. But even at 10-2, the Tigers
likely would've wound up in the Outback, although they might've been in play
more for the Capital One.

A big deal-breaker for
the Orlando-based bowl would've caused some unwanted ripple effect, though, with
Wisconsin as the Big Ten selection. LSU folks did not want to face the Badgers
to end this season and then start 2014 vs. them in Reliant Stadium. Besides,
when you compare the stadiums where the Outback and Capital One are played, it's
fair to say the Tigers came out in front.

The only way LSU could've
improved its bowl status would've been by winning at either Georgia or Alabama.
And in both cases, the better team won, hands down.

So the Tigers wound up
where they were supposed to be, with a slight alteration from Dallas to Tampa.

I've gotten feedback
about this not being a very appealing bowl game because Iowa is unranked and
has four losses. That I don't understand at all. Would it have been more
intriguing to see the Tigers against Oklahoma State or Nebraska in the Gator
Bowl? Probably so, and this is coming from a writer who gets easily bored.

But when you scratch
below the surface just a little bit, you see that three of Iowa's four losses
came against teams that are currently 11-1 or better (Northern Illinois,
Michigan State and Ohio State) and the Hawkeyes beat three bowl-bound teams.

Beyond all the
who-beat-whom stuff, consider this: Iowa allows only 303.2 total yards a game, which
ranks seventh nationally. Still not convinced? How about this nugget - Iowa coach
Kirk Ferentz has led his team to four bowl games against SEC opponents and has
won three of them. Not exactly SEC domination, there.

Bottom line: The Hawkeyes
earned the right to be in the Outback just as much as LSU did. While the Big
Ten might not be as strong as the SEC, Iowa did what it had to do down the
stretch to land in Tampa instead of a lower-level bowl.

Which means the
Hawkeyes -- and their fans, who tend to travel very well at this time of year -- will be amped up and motivated to face the Tigers. That can't be undervalued in
a bowl game.

It's up to the LSU
players, and perhaps the Tigers' fan as well, to be equally as inspired for this
game. LSU earned the right to play in a high-profile bowl game not in Atlanta
or worse, and now it's time to see if the Tigers embrace what they have earned.